Other vendors (such as Apple and Adobe) develop their own LCD-optimized sub-pixel rendering schemes in response.Ģ000: Around this time, FontLab becomes the dominant purveyor of professional font editing tools because Fontographer hasn’t had an update in years. It first ships in 2000 and becomes the default Windows rendering with Windows Vista in 2007. OpenType handles similar problems to GX, arguably in a less elegant way, but is more widely adopted thanks to broader support from software, operating systems, and font vendors.ġ998: Microsoft shows ClearType, a screen rendering technology that uses sub-pixel rendering in ways that take advantage of the peculiar structure of LCD screens. With a slow build-up, it takes until 2000 for the first significant numbers of OpenType fonts to ship. Later rebranded Apple Advanced Typography, it is still in use by Apple for system fonts, this powerful approach is used by few fonts other than Apple’s own.ġ996: OpenType is announced by Microsoft and Adobe, based on Microsoft’s earlier TrueType Open technology. MM will eventually die as an end user format, but the interpolation techniques used in MM remain mainstream in type design.ġ995: Apple introduces GX Typography. Secret font formats are never mainstream again.ġ991: Multiple Master Type 1 fonts are introduced. Adobe publishes the previously secret PostScript Type 1 specification. Yes, NeXT and others had done this before, but these were the first mainstream technologies. Initially, Fontographer only handles Type 3 fonts, not Type 1.ġ991: TrueType (Apple and Microsoft) and Adobe Type Manager (Adobe) bring WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) to fonts on screen. Thus begins the democratization of type design. Around this time a bitmap font editor called Fontastic appears, from Altsys.ġ986: Fontographer arrives, bringing vector outline font editing to normal people, where previously Ikarus cost as much as a house. Re-kerning and adjusting leading is a common practice.ġ980s: By the 1980s, a huge library of typefaces and logos existed as photographic film and needed to be input into computers for the latest generation of printing and sign-making devices.ġ985: PostScript, Desktop publishing, and the PostScript Type 1 and Type 3 vector outline font formats, thanks to Adobe, Aldus, and Apple. Sending out copy to the typesetter is a regular chore that can take days to get back.
Note: At this time, most designers are using press type and photographic processes at the local typesetter's shop to paste up type on keylines for the client and internal approvals. It was licensed by major foundries such as Agfa-Compugraphic, Autologic, Berthold, ITC ( International Typeface Corporation), Letraset, Linotype, Monotype, Stempel, and others. Ikarus was its own format, intended to be a sort of digital master and could be converted to other vector or raster formats as needed. A complete Ikarus digitizing system cost over $100,000. 1975: Ikarus is type design and production software developed by URW foundry for converting existing typefaces and logos into digital format for use on computer-driven printing, plotting and sign cutting devices.
0 kommentar(er)
